In article <ij8d09$370$1 at smc.vnet.net>,
P_ter <petervansummeren at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> It seems to me that a very peculiar business model streams
> Mathematica. As a consequence: now and than a kind of trauma bubbles up
> in this math group.
>
Some of these peculiarities stem from the fact that a software app is
basically, in fact, a _tool_. Users buy this tool, just like they buy a
hammer, or a table saw, to _do_ things -- make and build things -- with
it.
But there is a problem with this: unless constrained somehow, a user can
buy this tool, then make and give away unlimited copies of the tool to
others at essentially zero cost. This is understandably poorly received
by the vendors of the tool.
So, we've gotten into in all this "licensing" idiocy with software: we
users allegedly don't "buy" the app, we "license" it, and can only use
it to make things that the vendor has licensed us to make.
This is, of course, garbage -- legal garbage, but garbage. Imagine
going to the hardware store to buy a table saw, or vacuum cleaner, or a
paint sprayer, and being asked by the hardware store to sign a several
thousand word license saying just what you're allowed to do with those
appliances, for whom, and where. (Maybe you buy a vac with a "Home
License"; you can then vacuum your own house, but not loan it to the
local nonprofit to vacuum their premises, or carry it around and use it
in a small home cleaning service you operate.)
A second problem is that Wolfram, Inc., is in some ways a very peculiar
organization. It makes an absolutely superb and more or less unique
product, but a product that has an immense impact on the intellectual
and academic and scholarly life of our society. Yet, it's a totally
private organization, with very little public reporting, very little
public guidance, very little regulation, very little transparency -- and
in some ways very little direct competition for what it does.
My solution? It's long past time that we have a true _open source_
competitor for Mathematica (it might be called "Wikimatica"). One can
only hope that the academic and scholarly and IT communities will
eventually get around to going at this task.